In this lesson, you learn when and how to invite people to your Facebook Page, how to build the Wall of your page through status updates—text, photos, links, and video—and how to manage the Info, Photos, Discussions, and other tabs.

This chapter is from the book

Waiting to Send Out Invitations

When you kick off your Facebook fan page for your business, Facebook first displays a page called "Get Started," which makes it easy for you to invite people to come to your fan page right at the beginning when there's nothing on it.

This makes a lot of sense—for Facebook. All the people you invite who aren't yet using Facebook, or who are users but aren't very active, might just join or get more active because of your invitation. So Facebook wants you to reach out to as many people as possible as quickly as possible.

The trouble with this approach is that it's not very good for you from a business perspective. Inviting a lot of people to come to your fan page when it's not set up, or doesn't have any content, is like inviting people to come visit your new restaurant when it's still under construction and the chef hasn't worked his first day yet. Not very many people are likely to come back.

So I recommend, instead, that you do the same thing with your Facebook Page that you'd do with opening a restaurant:

Get it set up nicely and make it pop. Remember that your goal is to make a great first impression.

Invite a few close friends in. Invite them to try it. Make sure they Like the page so they get status updates, then ask them to comment on a status update or two. Find out from them what they like and don't like.

Make a few improvements. Use the feedback you get to improve your fan page. Focus on improvements that encourage people to Like the page when they visit.

Then—and only then—invite everyone else. They'll get a great first impression, and be that much more inclined to Like the page and to share updates from the page with others.

So follow the instructions in this lesson to get your page set up first, and then open the flood gates when you're positioned.

Tip: Watching People Visit Your Page

If you're really interested in what people think about your Facebook Page, have them visit it for the first time while you're with them. Watch where their eyes go and see what interests them and what doesn't. Ask them questions about what they like and don't like; assure them that you won't be offended by their opinion. Write down what you hear. This kind of input is invaluable in improving your page.

Why are Likes so important? A Like acts like a subscription to your status update; people who Like your page keep hearing from you, via your status update, while people who don't Like your page no longer hear from you. So you really want people who have a genuine interest in your business to take the step of clicking the Like button. (It's easy for them to stop receiving your updates later if they get tiresome.) So focus your early efforts on getting Likes.

Only you see the Get Started tab; users of your fan page don't see it. When in the infinite wisdom of Facebook's computers you've done enough to improve your page, the Get Started tab disappears.